This document discusses rethinking assessment to value authentic learning and identity development. It advocates moving from standardized competency-based assessment to more deliberative assessment that makes student learning visible through evidence from multiple contexts. Deliberative assessment involves inclusive processes where students are privileged informants and assessment helps make programs more responsive. Competencies could serve as boundary objects for mutually accountable connection between individual and organizational learning. Eportfolios are proposed as a way to make multiple understandings of contested outcomes visible through students' reasoning and use of evidence from experience. The role of evidence in eportfolios is complex, and reflection on selections of digital evidence can distinguish portfolios and support reflective learning.

1. Deliberative Assessment for Integrative, Reflective, and Lifewide Learning Darren Cambridge June 8, 2010 PebbleBash, Telford, UK

2. Rethinking Assessment Assessment means making student learning visible so that it can inform programmatic and curricular innovation and demonstrate effect on learning and identity development

3. Looking afresh means asking: What kinds of learning do we value? What assessment process do those values imply? How does this change how we think about outcomes and evidence?

4. What do we value about individual learning and identity development?

5. Authenticity Finding truth through examination of what is unique about oneself Enacting that difference through creative expression Protecting choice as a core value

7. Social Authenticity Becoming an authentic individual is not a matter of recoiling from society in order to find and express the inner self. What it involves is the ability to be a reflective individual who discerns what is genuinely worth pursuing within the social context in which he or she is situated.

9. “Finding the Thread in My Life”

10. Integrity Consistency and coherence over time (lifelong) Consistency and coherence across roles (lifewide) Achieved and asserted through narrative

11. From Subject to Author Ordering role of institutions and traditions shifted to individual From being our values, relationships, and experiences to having them Overarching principles that mediate competition Thinking about the self as a system you compose and conduct

12. Symphonic Employability Career identity integrates Human capital (competencies) Social capital Adaptability Cultivated by narrative - Ashford et. al.

13. Social Integrity

14. Environments for Growth In both personal and professional domains Learning as attitude toward life Supported by inviting environments rich in content and people Technology as a means to guide and support Communicated by the portfolios as a whole Can inform her profession

15. Implications for How We Do Assessment

16. Three curricula Kathleen Yancey, Reflection in the Writing Classroom

17. Competencies Communication Critical Thinking Strategic Problem Solving Valuing Group Interaction Global Understanding Effective Citizenship Aesthetic Awareness Information Technology

19. Rubrics

21. Useful Cost-effective Reasonably accurate and truthful Multiple Direct Planned, organized, systematized and sustained Kinds of direct evidence Portfolios of student work Student reflections on their values, attitudes, and beliefs, if developing those are intended outcomes of the course or program

23. Through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts

24. Intellectual and Practical Skills

25. Inquiry and analysis

26. Critical and creative thinking

27. Written and oral communication

28. Quantitative literacy

29. Information literacy

30. Teamwork and problem solving

31. Personal and Social Responsibility

32. Civic knowledge and engagement—local and global

33. Intercultural knowledge and competence

34. Ethical reasoning and action

35. Foundations and skills for lifelong learning

36. Integrative Learning

38. Deliberative Assessment Student are privileged informants about their own learning. Evidence of learning needs to come from multiple contexts, and the relationships between them need to be articulated. Assessment should be a system of deliberative processes inclusive of all stakeholders that makes programs more responsive to them.

39. A New Role for Competencies Standardized: Matching performance to apre-defined set of outcomes Deliberative: Capture standards all stakeholders value as enacted in practice and examining alignment of both student and programmatic performance

40. Competencies in Organizational Learning Standardized: Articulating expectations to students Deliberative: Means for mutually accountable connection between individual and organizational learning Boundary objects: “Boundary objects are objects that are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites” (Leigh Star 1989)

41. Ineffable  Essentially Contested Ineffable outcomes: Things we all think are important but don’t think we can measure E.g., ethics, leadership, social responsibility Essentially contested concept (Gallie, 1956) More optimal development because of contestation

43. Through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts

44. Intellectual and Practical Skills

45. Inquiry and analysis

46. Critical and creative thinking

47. Written and oral communication

48. Quantitative literacy

49. Information literacy

50. Teamwork and problem solving

51. Personal and Social Responsibility

52. Civic knowledge and engagement—local and global

53. Intercultural knowledge and competence

54. Ethical reasoning and action

55. Foundations and skills for lifelong learning

56. Integrative Learning

62. New Ways of Thinking about Evidence

63. Academics as Test of Self We intended for curricular content to be an central source of evidence and ideas and strategies, but it didn’t show up this way Class work functioned as A demonstration of character virtues An experience A goal putting aspiration towards those virtues in action

64. Complicating Evidence Eportfolios are reflection on a selection of digital evidence Link between evidence and reflection distinguishes eportfolios and other digital means for supporting reflective learning Managing information about knowledge, skills, abilities and experiences “Evidence” is the documents included in a portfolio on which the author reflects Use of evidence in practice is more complex than the eportfolio literature often acknowledges

65. An Emergent Typology of Use of Evidence in ePortfolios Characteristics of item used as evidence Agency Media Purpose of incorporating evidence Rhetorical Function Object Characteristics of associated learning activities Sponsorship Participation

67. Matches and Mismatches Reflective description of evidence Content of evidence Local – site of specific evidence use Global – the whole portfolio Matches and mismatches yield more sophisticated understanding and resources for supporting portfolio authors

68. An Example: Richard Zepp’s ePortfolio

70. Public Displays of Connection Blogroll and friends lists as messages (Donath and boyd, 2004) Intentional performance of identity rather than a transparent representation of a social network beyond the system Network as implicit validation of profile information

72. danah boyd as suicide girl “impression management is an inescapably collective process” (2008)

76. Available from Jossey-Bass, October, 2010  Stylu Published by Stylus, 2009 dcambrid@gmail.com ncepr.org/darren(slides here)